20 for 20: Episode 13 — the Process

To mark my 20th year of being a cartoonist in Mississippi, I thought I’d dig out 20 tales from the past two decades. Some are funny. Some are serious. All tell the story of how I came to fall in love with this sometimes frustrating but always fascinating state we live in.

Every morning I face the specter of a blank piece of paper. Cartoon ideas are like fresh bread or beer — they get stale quickly. Unlike my friends in the comic strip world, I can’t do cartoons six weeks in advance. Nor can do five in a day and take the rest of the week off. To be topical, they are something I have to do every single day. For example, it’s 7:40 a.m. I have no idea what I am going to draw for tomorrow. That’s my version of the movie Groundhog Day. The alarm goes off and I hear Sonny and Cher. Then I go looking for ideas. And I’ve done it here for 20 years.

Remember 7th grade P.E.? Remember having to run a mile and thinking you were going to barf a lung? I do. And I nearly did. But you know what? I’ve run a marathon — that’s 26.2 miles. You know how I did it? Daily practice. Creativity is like a muscle. It has to be exercised regularly to get stronger.

My muse is pretty reliable. Like I’ve written before, adrenaline is my friend. Katrina, 9/11 — you know, the big issues make my job challenging but easier. The hardest time to come up with a cart3oon? When I’m tired or have been on vacation. This has year has been a personal poopstorm. Yet I’m still cranking out ideas. Is every idea brilliant? No. Even I will admit that.

I’m about to get started for the day. I’ve already watched the news and read the paper. I will scan the internet. For a distraction, I’ll read some Facebook posts (although I’ve done that less during the election.). What I don’t do is look at other cartoons. I’m very particular about this. I don’t want another idea influencing mine (I will occasionally check up on my friends to see what they are drawing). Then I start sketching on 8×10 copy paper. When I get about five good ideas, I’ll present them to my editor. If I have a REALLY good idea, I’ll pitch it. But giving my editor a choice is how I am edited. No one at The Clarion-Ledger has ever told me what to draw. I wouldn’t have taken the job if those were my terms of employment. I also don’t take suggestions. If I am going to be bitched at because of a cartoon, its going to be my idea.

When I have an approved idea, I take a piece of 11×14 Bristol board and sketch it out. I sketch fairly tight. Then I ink over the top of the pencil sketch with calligraphy pens and Micron pens. When the drawing is done, I erase it with a kneaded eraser. They are also great stress balls, too. Ideas can come in 30 seconds or three hours. Drawing takes about two to three hours. Then comes the next step. I scan.

I scan the cartoon, save a line art version of the file for my syndicate. Then I color it using a free program called Colorized. That takes about 15 minutes. I then open them up in Photoshop, size them, touch them up and get them ready to send them where they need to go.

In the old days, I’d take the cartoon downstairs and it would be shot on a big camera then it would be pasted onto the editorial page. Now I email it to the page designer.

Cartoons used to be seen 24 hours after they were created. Now you can see one in the time it takes the time for me to create. That’s good — and bad.

I have to be pretty good at being able to interpret an idea quickly and produce a cartoon. And the faster you do that, the more you open yourself up to a cartoon that hasn’t been checked for potential libel, etc. I have to be on my A game. And as I get busier and busier, that gets harder. But somehow I manage.

Eighty percent of a good cartoon is the idea. I spend about six to seven hours a day (sometimes more) researching for all the things I do. I read a variety of sources (I don’t just listen to one news source for example). I read things I generally disagree with. I look for how things really are and then put my spin on them. My spin is how I see the world — and that’s influenced by how I grew up and where I’ve lived. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. I haven’t walked in your shoes. I’ll never totally see things the way you probably do. My wife doesn’t agree with me all the time — and she married me.

I have noticed a chance in tone in this country the past 20 years. When I got started in the 80’s, President Ronald Reagan (R) and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D) were having beers together. They totally disagreed with each other but somehow managed to keep a personal relationship. Now, if someone disagrees with you, they hate you. I have my theories why this has happened, but I will say that social media has made it easier for people to express that sentiment.

Yesterday asked me how much longer I will do this. I don’t know. I hope for a while longer because I love it. All I can predict is that I have to come up with a cartoon idea for tomorrow. So I had better get busy.